I was born in the early days of what would be called the Baby Boom. I went through my childhood in the fifties and stumbled through my adolescence in the sixties. I witnessed the innovations that would change the way we all lived. I vividly recall listening to comedy shows on the radio and then engaging in the wonders of television with my father. Back then our screen was tiny and the characters who made us laugh were resplendent in shades of black and white. I remember my father laughing so hard that his belly jiggled and I almost immediately inherited his love of a humor and a good joke.
I grew up in a home with only a gigantic fan housed in the attic to pull a breeze into our house through open windows. How we survived the humidity and heat seems almost impossible now but somehow we soldiered through even in our school classrooms. My mother did not install an air conditioner in our home until I was eighteen years old. Even then she only used it for a few hours each day.
When I was in middle school I watched the first rockets going into space and then into orbits around the earth. I flew on a plane for the first time on my honeymoon. I remember when CNN first arrived with news all day long and we thought that it was a silly idea that would never last.
One thing after another advanced our society at such a rapid rate that I began to simply take it for granted that inventions would enhance my world to a point where I was literally living in luxury that would have confounded a king of old. I sometimes spoke of our incredible progress with my grandfather whose life spanned two centuries and innumerable innovations. He viewed the world with great optimism because he had seen the world light up with electricity and communication systems that made us more and more aware of each other.
I have travelled to other nations and enjoyed their history and cultures but I always see the aspects of living that we share with each other. People from around the world are no longer foreign to me because in the end it seems that we all yearn for much the same kind of peace and progress in our lives.
One of my high school teachers would tell us that he wanted to make us citizens of the world. I suppose that at least with me he was a success. I have filled my home with books that showed me how much alike the human spirit is no matter where people live. There is so much available information now that I do not feel sheltered from viewing the earth and its people in very personal ways. My friends represent a global patchwork of beautiful souls who continue to teach me about the humanity.
Now that I am older I feel grateful for the many advances in medicine that no doubt have enriched my life. I walk without a limp because of a titanium replacement for my knee. I take medication for the “gut trouble” that my grandmother prophesied would one day be my familial fate. I can see clearly because the cataracts that were clouding my vision are gone. I have been saved from terrible diseases because of the vaccines that I have received since I was a child.
The grocery stores that I visit are a cornucopia of variety. I can get tomatoes in the cold of winter and oranges in the months of summer. I enjoy tea from around the world and my pantry if filled with delights that I did not even know existed when I was a child. When if think of how fortunate I am I sometimes feel a sense of guilt in knowing that not everyone enjoys the safety and security that is mine.
My work as a teacher has shown me that there are children who only eat when they are at school because there is no food at home. They only read the books and magazines that I provided them because their families could not afford to splurge on such things. I have listened to children asking Santa to bring them a bed to sleep in. I have heard about a family living in a car behind a funeral home where they freshened up and sometimes entered to stay out of the cold. I have known children who became the parents of their younger siblings while their own mother and father were working double shifts just to pay the rent and keep the lights on in the house. I know that in spite of our incredible human advances there are still far too many people in the world barely ekeing out a living day by day.
I suppose that I engage in my political rants because I see such things and understand that those who have much must never forget those who have so little. My mother taught me that even with a meager income one can share a bit with others. I am willing to share even more. As long as there are people on this earth suffering from want we should all be focusing on helping them rather than fighting with each other and groping for more and more and more.
When you get to my age the possessions begin to mean less and less. People are far more important than a fancy home or an accumulation of wealth so vast that it can never be spent in a lifetime. Those of us who are Boomers have been lucky for most of our lives but the younger generation is struggling in ways that many of us have never experienced. It is time that we give them the boost that we had in those years when the sky was not even a limit. We should be making it easier for them to be educated if they wish. We should have programs that provide them with ways to get homes. Our focus should not be on getting rid of jobs but instead is should be on creating them. What we do for them will pay big dividends in the end. They should be able to one day look back on their lives realizing how wonderful they have been just as we are able to do. Every decision that we make should be laser focused on creating an ever better world for all people.
